Absorbent articles designed like underpants, so called diaper pants, have been known for some time. As the name indicates, these articles are designed like shorts or briefs. To make things easier for the user, the articles are often pre-configured like underpants when supplied.
To make things easier for the user or for nursing staff, parents or the like, the diaper pants are often made up like underpants with the aid of an openable seal line, for example a thermal weld seam, which is expediently arranged at one leg opening of the underpants and extends from the waist line of the underpants down to the leg opening.
With the aid of the openable seal line, the diaper pants can be opened in order to check whether they have to be changed, for example. If it is found that the diaper pants do not have to be changed, it is necessary to be able to close the diaper again. If the seal line is a thermal weld seam or some other type of closure which cannot be re-closed, the diaper pants in other words have to be provided with means for re-closing them after the seal line has been opened. These means for re-closing the diaper pants are expediently of a type which can be used over again, i.e. permits repeated opening and re-closing in order to check the state of the diaper pants.
Known solutions to this problem are disclosed in, for example, documents GB 2 267 024 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,370,634. Both of these documents disclose diaper pants with seal lines of the once-only type, where the diaper pants are provided with two-part re-closing means of a type which can be used more than once, for example touch-and-close tapes.
According to the prior art disclosed in, for example, the two abovementioned documents, one part of the two-part means for re-closing is arranged on separate flaps which protrude from the natural shape of the underpants, beyond the original seal line, and the second part is arranged on the underpants as a “target area” for the flap.
The prior art thus has a number of disadvantages: the separate flaps which are used make manufacture of the diaper pants more difficult and thus make production more expensive. In addition, the speed of production is reduced by the diaper pants having to be provided with separate flaps.
Moreover, the use of flaps entails increased material consumption in the manufacture of the diaper pants, which makes the product more costly to produce.